Bill's Notebook

“Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. ‘The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,’ Breitbart says. ‘And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.’”

How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media – Wired, April 2010.

By now, you have probably heard of how Shirley Sherrod, a former(?) Federal official, was forced to resign after a heavily-edited video of a recent speech she gave at an NAACP event was used as evidence of reverse-racism in Obama’s administration.  After the tape was released by Mr. Breitbart to FOX News, both the NAACP and White House called for Ms. Sherrod’s resignation.

Then, the unedited video was released (you can view it here).  Basically, the videotape shows that Ms. Sherrod’s statements were the exact opposite of what FOX News reported.  The NAACP apologized last night for being “snookered“  and called for her case to be reconsidered.  The farm family that Sherrod referred to even defended her while, just a few hours ago, the White House apologized.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided if the White House and the USDA remembered one basic fact – FOX News is not an actual news station.  Also, once they realized that Mr. Breitbart was behind the videotape, they should have remembered how an earlier, heavily-edited videotape falsely accused ACORN (and let to that organization’s demise).  At the very least, someone should have asked to see the complete unedited tape.  Even Mr. Breitbart admits that viewing the entire tape demonstrates that Ms. Sherrod is not a racist.

Mr. Breitbart and others like him are taking advantage of the decline of journalism.  Newsrooms are cutting back on staff and especially investigate reporters.  At the same time, they have to fill the 24-hour news hole and compete with other cable stations and local news.  Ratings are more essential now than ever.  Media manipulators know these weaknesses and use them to their partisan advantage.  As the Sherrod case shows, reputations can be damaged in just a few hours.  What is unusual about the Sherrod case is that the true picture came just as quickly.  In cases such as ACORN or Climategate, it was several months before the truth came out but was of little help in averting the damage.

It is imperative that the audience become more skeptical and reserve judgment before all of the facts are in.  More and more media manipulators are taking advantage of the decline of traditional journalism to spread their falsehoods.  Unfortunately, I don’t hold much hope as when obviously fictional news events (such as this from the Onion) are viewed as investigative journalism.

You have a strange idea of “fun,” Mr. Breitbart.

A few years ago, I picked up the premiere issue of Seed magazine.  The magazine was devoted to science as culture and it was great.  Wonderful, insightful articles and some amazing photographs which reminded me of OMNI magazine in its prime.  Seed also had a great online presence with a network of science blogs.  I looked forward to the magazine every month and reading the blogs everyday.

Then the last issue appeared in May of 2009.  There was an announcement on the website that the next issue would be out on June 2009 but none have appeared since that May issue.  The ScienceBlogs are still active but they haven’t been as good as they used to.  The better blogs have moved on to other sites and what is left is not that focused on scientific (with a few exceptions).  You have a few blogs that spend most of their time arguing with creationists and fundamentalists; other blogs that essentially repost clips from Olberman, Maddow, or Jon Stewart; and a couple of self-aggrandizing blogs.  There are a few standout blogs that I enjoy but they seem to leave after a while or stop posting altogether.

Now, ScienceBlogs has a new blog from PepsiCo called Food Frontiers.  A corporate-sponsored blog has the other ScienceBloggers up in arms about this conflict of interest.  I find it an interesting position when Seed magazine had advertisements and the ScienceBlog site has banner ads all over it.  The other blogs have touted their own books and others (one blog even has a “shoe of the week” which is tongue-in-cheek but can be construed as blatant advertising).  To me, this is just another sign of the decline of Seed and ScienceBlogs because to allow such a blatantly commercial blog speaks of a desperate attempt to raise money.  And once Seed lets in one commercial blog, it is opening the door to more.

This is a sad reflection on modern science as it has been recently revealed how corporations have funded research that conveniently confirms the interests of the corporate sponsors.  I guess I didn’t expect this with science journalism.  It is sad to see but there are other science magazines and science blogs.  I really did like Seed and ScienceBlogs and I hope that they rediscover their objectivity.

Nancy Dixon (author of one of the best books on communities of practice – CompanyCommand) has a great blog post about how NASA used conversation to capture knowledge gained from currently canceled Constellation program.  She describes how she helped NASA develop a knowledge capture strategy by working with NASA employees and other thought leaders in knowledge management.  Some excellent stuff here and I hope she formalizes the process into a book.

Two interesting articles about organizational culture in the latest issue of the “Journal of Organizational Change Management.”  The first article is a cultural analysis of organizational memory and its role in organizational change while the second article describes how organizational memory can hinder learning a new technology.

In the first article, McCabe gives a more detailed description of organizational culture as a collection of shared memories.  These memories can contradict each other or just be ambiguous about past organizational events but, woven together, these memories form a dynamic and conflicting culture for the organization.  McCabe disputes the common belief of many management theorists that the past can be erased in favor of the new reality because the past always blocks change.  Organizational memory is more complex than that because some memories can help facilitate change while other aspects resist change.  McCabe concludes by stating that organizational memory cannot be managed as part of the change process but must be accounted for.

McCabe’s article illuminates the findings in the second article by Becker.  The second article deals with the process of acquiring new technology in an organization.  As Becker explains, for employees to adopt a new technology they must unlearn the old technology.  They do this through releasing mental models of the workings of the old technology and create mental models of how the new technology works.  Memories of past change efforts can hinder the process of unlearning if it promotes fear and anxiety among the employees.  Becker does not have any specific remedies for dealing with organizational memory and unlearning but she does argue that further research is necessary to fully understand the unlearning process.

The relevance to Gov 2.0 is clear.  Many agencies have long and painful memories of past change efforts that have been woven into the current culture.  Gov 2.0 advocates must understand and acknowledge the past while developing strategies to alleviate the fear that will prevent government employees from unlearning the current way things are done in favor of making government transparent, open, and engaging.  Gov 2.0 advocates must take the positive aspects of the past and use those events to counter the negative past events while realizing that culture cannot be fully controlled.

References:

Becker, K. (2010). Facilitating unlearning during implementation of new technology. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23:3. 251-268.

McCabe, D. (2010). Taking the long view: A cultural analysis of memory as resisting and facilitating organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23:3. 230-250.

“Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?”
The Graduate – 1967

In the late 60s, plastics may have been the growth industry but, according to Mike Loukides at O’Reilly Radar, the ability to work with data is the new growth industry.

Plasma rocket technology is a game-changer in space exploration.  With plasma rockets, we could travel to Mars in 39 days rather than the estimated 18 months by chemical rockets.  Plasma rocket technology will also make commercial mining of asteroids a real possibility.

There is an experiment at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to change how government works. The idea is to stop measuring how much time an employee spends at the office but rather to measure how productive the employee is. The employee sets their own working hours and negotiates with their supervisor on what they should be producing and how it will be measured. It is a revolutionary concept and has worked in private industry.

A great example of this is how IBM has reinvented itself to use a ROWE-like environment. As Robert Paterson explains, IBM employees can live where they want and work in virtual teams based on their own schedules. What holds the workforce together is the use of social networking tools and the occasional face-to-face meeting. As Paterson writes, “If IBM can do this with 200,000 people so can you.”

One aspect that he mentions is the use of chat tools in place of meetings. This is not revolutionary as places I have worked at have using instant messaging systems to hold impromptu meetings. You can quickly get to the point, bring in people as needed, and there is a record of the meeting when you are finished.  And this was easily done with 2001 technology. I do not understand why more organizations don’t hold meetings this way instead of dragging everyone into the conference room for the weekly staff meeting.

Another great example from IBM is how well the virtual team works even though employees are in different countries and different time zones.  Allowing people to work at their natural productive hours means you will have better work and happier people.  An interesting point in the IBM experience is that face-to-face meetings are used to help workers build trust and tend to be about team-building rather than doing work.  I wonder how much more effective government workers would be if agencies devoted substantial time to team-building?

ROWE solves a lot of problems from the time wasted to commuting to balancing work-life issues. I’m hoping the OPM experiment is a success.  ROWE is clearly working in the private sector.

I’ve been saying in various posts on GovLoop how important apps are to Gov 2.0 (not a unique insight as plenty of others have come to the same conclusion).  What is great is the idea of crowdsourcing the development of government apps.

“Dawn of the commercial space age.”

As the author points out, private spacecraft don’t have to meet the requirements for a deep space mission.